Shakespeare 450
April marks the 450th anniversary
of Shakespeare’s birth, and with this selection of items owned by the Mercer
County Library System, you can brush up on your knowledge of the Bard!
By
Ken Ludwig
William
Shakespeare's plays are among the bedrocks of Western civilization and contain
the finest writing of the past 450 years. Many of the best novels, plays,
poetry, and films in the English language produced since Shakespeare's death in
1616--from Pride and Prejudice to The Godfather --are heavily influenced
by Shakespeare's stories, characters, language, and themes. In a sense, his
works are a kind of Bible for the modern world; bringing us together
intellectually and spiritually. Hamlet, Juliet, Macbeth, Ophelia, and a vast
array of other singular Shakespearean characters have become the archetypes of
our consciousness. To know some Shakespeare provides a head start in life. In How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare,
acclaimed playwright Ken Ludwig provides the tools you need to instill an
understanding and a love of Shakespeare's works in your children, and to have
fun together along the way. The author devised his methods while teaching his
own children, and his approach is friendly and easy to master.
“This
specialized guide for parents hoping to instill a bit of literary genius into
their youngsters is both a how-to book and a simple but serious analysis of
many of Shakespeare's major works. Olivier Award-winning playwright Ludwig's compelling
argument is that although it's out of fashion, memorization-and particularly
memorization of great literary works-is a gift you can give your children that
will influence their academic and personal life. The book begins with an
immediate lesson-memorizing a nine-word line from A Midsummer Night's Dream—written in a direct, personal tone to
show how easy and enjoyable the process can be; once this is demonstrated,
Ludwig explains his methodology and purpose in the second chapter. Within 20
pages, the book turns to analysis of the chosen works as well as general
lessons about Shakespeare's life and important dates of the Renaissance, and
discussions of the difference between poetry and prose. Ludwig breaks more
famous speeches down, sentence by sentence, and highlights juicy bits and plot
twists to hook children's interest. The book, in coordination with a web site
of printable resources, will best suit parents with a real interest in and
knowledge of Shakespeare, but will inspire any who wish to give their children
the ‘benefit of his considerable knowledge and artistry.’”—Publishers Weekly
By
Clinton Heylin
“In May 1609, Thomas Thorpe published what are now the
best-known examples of their kind ever written. In an age that loved long
titles, Thorpe felt a two-word title, Shakespeare's
Sonnets, would sell the book. Bingo, but a second printing never happened,
and from that day to this, the sonnets and the long poem appended to them, “A
Lover's Complaint,” have been constantly controversial. Who gave them to
Thorpe? Who wrote their inferior appendix? Who are they all about? Heylin, the
world's foremost (Bob) Dylanologist, says that the reason for all the
analyzing, conjecturing, and feuding is that Thorpe's publication was a bookleg
like a bootleg recording, something that wasn't supposed to be put into public
trade. It was probably suppressed because it had to be rediscovered 100 years
later, after which the fur really flew. Tracing the centuries of bio-biblio
hugger-mugger roused by Thorpe's simple attempt to make a killing, Heylin
produces such an enthralling account (despite the steady blizzard of
obscure names) that no ardent Shakespearean will cry, Hold! Enough!”—Booklist
“With
clear prose and an obvious love for his subject, Heylin here celebrates the
400th anniversary of Shakespeare's sonnets, following the convoluted history of
how they came to be published in 1609 and spinning off the tale of subsequent
printings, editorial decisions, and the players who made it happen. Shakespeare
circulated the sonnets among his friends with no intention of publishing them,
since he thought they wouldn't make him any money. Publisher George Eld, a
somewhat shady character with a tendency to pirate authors' works, and Thomas
Thorpe, an adventurer trying to make a name for himself in the London publishing
world, got hold of what were purported to be Shakespeare's sonnets and
published them. Following clues, Heylin attempts to answer questions of
authorship, how the sonnets were "edited," and who selected their
printing sequence. The book ends with all the sonnets in the order and wording
set by Thorpe. This is more of a literary detective story than a deep analysis
of the sonnets themselves that will interest all lovers of Shakespeare and
literature.”—Library Journal
This DVD contains six episodes that combine history, biography, iconic performances,
new analysis, and the personal passion of their celebrated hosts—Ethan Hawke,
Jeremy Irons, Derek Jacobi, Trevor Nunn, Joely Richardson, and David Tennant—to
tell the story behind the stories of Shakespeare's greatest plays.
By
Eric Rasmussen
“It sounds like the basis for a thriller: a team
of experts searches the world for an immeasurably valuable lost or stolen
property, a property that represents one of the triumphs of Western
civilization and that has met with various misadventures, including being
stored in a pillowcase, subjected to the elements, and written on by members of
the Spanish Inquisition. The property is the first folio of Shakespeare's
plays, of the 160 folios printed by two members of Shakespeare's acting company
in 1623. The team of experts was put together in 1996 by preeminent Shakespeare
scholar Rasmussen, coeditor of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Complete Works of William Shakespeare
and of the Norton Anthology of English
Renaissance Drama. The team's mission? To examine every surviving copy of
the first folio (they've examined 200 thus far) and to track down the missing
ones, most of which, Rasmussen believes, have been stolen. This is a
wonderfully engaging, witty, accessible account, both of the fates of first
folios and of the continuing efforts by Rasmussen's team to find the folios and
analyze them for authenticity. In one case, searchers examine a folio with a
bullet encased inside; in another, they attempt to determine whether it's blood
or red paint staining the copy. “This is as unputdownable as the most gripping
mystery: along the way, readers will learn much about the social history of the
folios, about the murders most foul connected to them, and about the dead
within two years fate that has often befallen the folio's
owners. Marvelous on every level.”—Booklist
(Starred Review)
“Part
literary history and part detective story, this is an engaging book about the
known surviving copies of the 1623 First Folio, which published 36 of
Shakespeare's plays. Of the 232 recorded surviving copies, the majority are in
public institutions rather than private hands. Rasmussen and his team of
researchers were part of the global quest to catalog every extant copy.
Rasmussen uses a lively, nonacademic style and engrossing anecdotes to tell us
about one of history's most fascinating books. The original price of the First
Folio was about L1, when the average worker made about L4 a year, and the price
has climbed exponentially since then; in 2002, Paul Getty paid $7 million for a
copy. Meisei University in Japan now owns a dozen folios, essentially as
financial security. Rasmussen is to be
congratulated for an entertaining and informative book. Recommended for readers
interested in literary and bibliographic history, Shakespeare, eccentric book
collectors, and book theft.”—Library
Journal
By
Stephen Marche
Did you
know the name Jessica was first used in The
Merchant of Venice? Or that Freud's idea of a healthy sex life came from
Shakespeare? Nearly 400 years after his death, Shakespeare permeates our
everyday lives: from the words we speak to the teenage heartthrobs we worship
to the political rhetoric spewed by the twenty-four-hour news cycle. In the
pages of this wickedly clever little book, Esquire columnist Stephen Marche
uncovers the hidden influence of Shakespeare in our culture, including these
fascinating tidbits: Shakespeare coined over 1,700 words, including hobnob,
glow, lackluster, and dawn; Paul Robeson's 1943 performance as Othello on
Broadway was a seminal moment in black history; Tolstoy wrote an entire book
about Shakespeare's failures as a writer; in 1936, the Nazi Party tried to
claim Shakespeare as a Germanic writer; without Shakespeare, the book titles Infinite Jest, The Sound and the Fury, and Brave
New World would not exist. Stephen Marche has cherry-picked the sweetest
and most savory historical footnotes from Shakespeare's work and life to create
this unique celebration of the greatest writer of all time.
“According
to novelist and Esquire columnist
Marche, Shakespeare was "the most influential person who ever lived,"
and his works frame how we understand the world. Obama, for instance, obliquely
and redemptively replayed the story of Othello in the 2008 election, and for many
Americans, he is the noble Moor, a courageous, charismatic outsider. Actor John
Wilkes Booth apparently borrowed heavily from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar for
his theatrical assassination of Lincoln. Shakespeare enriched the English
language by coining hundreds of words, like "assassination,"
"bandit," "hobnob," and "traditional," and
expressions with amazing staying power, like "green-eyed,"
"tongue-tied," and "dead as a doornail." Marche claims that
Shakespeare's frankness about sexuality has done more to foster open attitudes
than even Freud (who gained his humanism from Shakespeare). Romeo and Juliet's
profound portraits of teenagers in all their absurdity, nastiness, and
"terrifying beauty" have shaped our understanding of adolescence; and
Shakespeare, the author claims, is the dominant influence in Hollywood and was
wildly popular in Nazi Germany. Marche's essay is informative and entertaining,
but also rambling. None of this adds up to Marche's claim that Shakespeare is
more important than Obama or John Wilkes Booth or Freud. And only the
Bard-obsessed will need a whole chapter on Shakespeare-inspired starling
overpopulation.”—Publishers Weekly
By
Tony Tanner
When Tony
Tanner died in 1998, the world lost a critic who was as sensitive a reader of
Jane Austen as he was of Thomas Pynchon, and who wrote with a warmth and
clarity that belied his fluency in literary theory. In the final ten years of
his life, Tanner tackled the largest project any critic in English can take
on—writing a preface to each of Shakespeare’s plays. This collection serves as
a comprehensive introduction for the general reader, the greatest and perhaps
the last in the line of introductions to Shakespeare written by such luminaries
as Samuel Johnson and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Tanner brings Shakespeare to
life, explicating everything from big-picture issues such as the implications
of shifts in Elizabethan culture to close readings of Shakespeare’s deployment
of complex words in his plays. Although these prefaces are written for a
general audience, there is much value for the scholar as well. Tanner
introduces some of the most significant recent and historical scholarship on
Shakespeare to show the reader how certain critics frame large issues in a
useful way. This scholarly generosity permits Johnson, Hazlitt, Emerson,
Thoreau, Ruskin, Pater, and many others to enter into conversation. The Independent said of the project, “All of Tanner’s
life and education had prepared him for this task and the results are magnificent—both
accessible and erudite.”
- Lisa S.
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